You have asked whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under
the Public Information Act (the "act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request
was assigned ID# 124984.

The Texas Department of Agriculture (the "department") received a request for a "list of
persons and/or firms for whom O.E.C.D. - Koralle tags have been printed and the number
of tags issued in 1998-1999." In response to the request, you submit to this office for review
the information at issue. You state that "[a]lthough the department has no interest in the
release of the requested information, [a specified company] notified the department of its
objection to the release of the information to its competitor."(1) You state that "the department
requests a ruling from your office regarding whether the requested information is excepted
from public disclosure under section 552.110 of the Government Code." We have
considered the exception and arguments you have raised and reviewed the submitted
information.

Pursuant to section 552.305, we notified South Texas Planting Seed Association, Inc.
("STPSA"), whose proprietary interests may be implicated by this request for information,
and provided them with an opportunity to claim that the information at issue is excepted
from disclosure. See Gov't Code § 552.305; Open Records Decision No. 542 (1990). The
notification states that if the company does not respond within 14 days of receipt, this office
will assume that the company has no privacy or property interest in the requested
information. Although you indicate that "the department has no interest in the release of the
requested information," we note that you have raised some arguments against disclosure of
the information at issue on behalf of STPSA. However, since STPSA did not respond to our
notification, we assume that the company has no property or privacy interest in the
information. Furthermore, although we have considered the department's arguments on
behalf of STPSA, we conclude that the department has not established that releasing the
requested information would likely cause STPSA to suffer substantial competitive injury.
Therefore, we have no basis to conclude the information about STPSA is excepted from
required public disclosure.

We are resolving this matter with an informal letter ruling rather than with a published open
records decision. This ruling is limited to the particular records at issue under the facts
presented to us in this request and should not be relied upon as a previous determination
regarding any other records. If you have questions about this ruling, please contact our
office.

1. We note that information is not confidential under the Public Information Act simply because the party submitting it to a governmental body anticipates or requests that it be kept confidential. Open Records Decision No. 479 (1987).